Tonight's Poet Corner: Achievement Unlocked

Achievement Unlocked
by Belinda Roddie

finishing a crossword in under four minutes
the words just get caught in your nose after a while
like fine dust or steam from a frying pan
moist, clinging to the fibers that make up
both you and I, your strings and my strings

you catch the last sentence of the penultimate episode
of a television show that tries to warn you, plead
with you, to turn and walk the other way, to extract
the silicon out of your left ear so you can hear music
again instead of tech-approved tinnitus leading you
to warbling dreams on warming nights

I hate to tell you this, but your brain isn't getting
any stronger, and you're not getting any stabler, either
the folds keep pushing downward like a wrinkling
bedsheet, tangled up in the spindly legs of your neurons
all tied into knots behind your tired eyes
don't mistake quick success for eternal wisdom
you have to look up hints to your puzzles, anyway